A release from the company this morning says that Amazon's much anticipated 7-inch,$199 slate will beginning showing up on customers' doorsteps a little sooner than anticipated.

"We're thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected." said Amazon's Kindle VP, Dave Limp in the statement. "Kindle Fire quickly became the bestselling item across all of Amazon.com, and based on customer response we're building millions more than we'd planned."

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Amazon's promotional effort of the Kindle Fire, which many believe could be the first substantial challenger to Apple's iPad in the tablet market, has been closely controlled. For months, Amazon refused to even acknowledge it was developing a tablet. Then, earlier this fall it unveiled a whole new line of Kindles at greatly reduced prices while also introducing the Fire.

The company also announced that its new Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G will ship tomorrow, six days earlier than previously expected.

No word yet on whether the Kindle Fire will also be available in retail locations like Best Buy today. Most stores should have stock of the tablets on site by now, but Best Buy's Web site still lists the Fire as "Coming Soon" and unavailable for in-store pickup.